Full information about the following parks and attractions can be found in the December 2004 issue of Practical Caravan. For back issues telephone 08456 777812. Admission Price and Opening Times were correct at the time of publishing. Please check for latest information before visiting.

Where to go: BEAMISH OPEN AIR MUSEUM

Address Beamish, Co. Durham DH9 0RGL
Website Click Here
Opening times Daily 10am to 4pm (winter) or 5pm (summer). Last admission 3pm. Closed Monday and Fridays between November and March. Admission (depending on season)
 • One of Britain's best open-air museums, Beamish portrays life in 19th- and early 20th-century northern England. Guides in period dress will show you around a real drift mine, a 1913 colliery village complete with a board school, a chapel, and gardens filled with poultry and pigeons, to show how miners and their families lived. There is also an excellent display of steam locomotives.

Where to stay: STRAWBERRY HILL FARM CAMPING AND CARAVANNING

Address Running Waters, Old Cassop, Durham DH6 4QA
Website Click Here
Open All year

Where to go: BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM

Address Tipton Road, Dudley DY14SQ
Website Click Here
Opening times March-October, daily 10am-5pm. November-February, Wednesday-Sunday, 10am-4pm. Closed 25-26 December and 3-4 January. Admission Adults £9.95. Children (5-18) £5.75. Under 5s free. Senior citizens £8.75. Family ticket £28.
 • One of the most popular visitor attractions outside London, this museum highlights the past life and times of the great industrial area to the west of Birmingham. Trams and trolleybuses take visitors from modern exhibition halls to a 19th-century canalside village, with its coal-fired bakery, and Victorian houses and chapel.

Where to stay: STANMORE HALL TOURING PARK

Address Stourbridge Road, Bridgnorth, Shropshire WV15 6DT
Website Click Here
Open All Year

Where to go: GEEVOR TIN MINE HERITAGE CENTRE

Address Pendeen, near St Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall TR19 7EW
Website Click Here
Opening times Daily, 9am-4pm. Closed Saturdays. Closed 18-26 December and 1-2 January.
Admission Adults £6.50, children £4, family ticket £17.50, senior citizens £6
 • Cornwall was the world leader in tin and copper mining 150 years ago, but that is all in the past now. In 1991, Geevor was the last UK tin mine to close, but has now re-opened as a museum and heritage centre. Visitors can see how tin was extracted and processed, and walk through narrow 18th-century tunnels with a guide who vividly brings to life the conditions of the times.

Where to stay: TRETHEM MILL TOURING PARK

Address St Just-in-Roseland, Cornwall TR2 5JF
Website Click Here
Open 1 April - 10 October

Where to go: IRONBRIDGE GORGE MUSEUMS

Address Coach Road, Coalbrookdale, Shropshire TF8 7DQ
Website Click Here
Opening times Daily from 10am-4am/5pm. Closed 25 December and 1 January.
Admission Passport Ticket for entry into 10 museums: adults £13.25; children and students £8.75; over 60s £11.50; families £42. The passport lasts indefinitely and allows visitors to return at any time in the future.
 • This World Heritage Site is the location of the first ever iron bridge. Its ten fascinating museums reflect the history of the bridge and the gorge, which were at the centre of the Industrial Revolution, the people who lived there, and their work from the early 1700s to Victorian times.

Where to stay: SEVERN GORGE PARK

Address Bridgnorth Road, Tweedale, Telford, Shropshire TF7 4JB
Website Click Here
Open All year

Where to go: KEW BRIDGE STEAM MUSEUM

Address Green Dragon Lane, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 0EN
Website Click Here
Opening times Daily, 11am-5pm. Closed 20 December-4 January.
Admission Weekends and bank holidays with engines in steam: adults £5.20; children aged 5-15 £3; senior citizens and students £4.20; family £15.95. Reduction on weekdays when engines are static
 • Housed in a 19th-century pumping station, the museum is based around five Cornish beam engines that were used to pump out flooded mines. Of these, the Grand Junction 90, is the largest working beam engine in the world. There are also examples of diesel, water and animal-powered pumping systems.

Where to stay: CHERTSEY CAMPING AND CARAVANNING CLUB SITE

Address Bridge Road, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 8JX
Website Click Here
Open All year

Where to go: LLECHWEDD SLATE CAVERNS

Address Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd LL41 3NB
Website Click Here
Opening times Daily, 10am-4.15pm. Closed 25 December 25
Admission Adults £8.25. Children £6.25. Senior citizens £7.
 • Visitors descend into this genuine Victorian slate mine via the UKs steepest passenger railway. Once you are in the depths, this multi-award-winning attraction tells the story of a great industry that brought hitherto untold prosperity to Snowdonia, but claimed the lives of so many miners. Above ground, you can visit a recreated Victorian village, with an old fashioned sweet shop, a smithy, and the Miners Arms pub, which serves refreshments

Where to stay: BEDDGELERT FOREST CAMPING AND CARAVANNING CLUB SITE

Address Caernarfon Road, Beddgelert, Gwynedd LL55 4UU
Website Click Here
Open All year, except 3 November-18 December

Where to go: MORWELLHAM QUAY

Location Morwellham, Tavistock, Devon
Website Click Here
Opening times 10am-4.30pm/5.30pm, last admission 2.30pm/3.30pm
Admission Adults £8.90, children £6, under 5s free, senior citizens £7.80, family ticket £26
 • Formerly one of the greatest copper ports in Queen Victoria's empire, after the great mining industry in Devon and Cornwall collapsed Morwellham slumbered beneath decades of undergrowth in the heart of the Tamar Valley, with most of its buildings and quaysides left intact . Today, Morwellham Quay is enjoying a second lease of life as an award-winning living museum based around the historic port and mine workings.

Where to stay: DORNAFIELD CARAVAN PARK

Address Two Mile Oak, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 6DD
Website Click Here
Open 13 March-31 October

Where to go: PONTCYSYLLTE AQUEDUCT

Address Llangollen Canal, Pontcysyllte, Wrexham, North Wales
Website: Click Here
 • The great period of inland waterway building in the 1790s was known as the Canal Mania, and it has left Britain with many marvels of engineering. One of the most spectacular of them all was the 'canal in the sky' built by Thomas Telford to cross the valley of the River Dee in North Wales. A masterpiece of Georgian engineering, it took ten years to construct. It recently underwent refurbishment costing over half a million pounds, and a new visitor centre is expected to be open in time for its centenary in 2005.

Where to stay: THE PLASSEY LEISURE PARK

Address Eyton, Wrexham, Clwyd LL13 0SP
Website Click Here
Open 1 March-31 October

Where to go: SNIBSTON DISCOVERY PARK

Location Ashby Road, Coalville, Leicestershire LE67 3LN
Web Click Here
Opening times 10am-3pm/5pm
Admission Adults £5.70. Children £3.60. Concessions £3.90. Family £17.50.
 • The park's former colliery buildings have been restored not only as exhibits in their own right but as the base for a major science and heritage museum. The mineral railway that served the old colliery has now been restored and offers passenger rides. You can learn how people lived and worked in a British mining community from the Industrial Revolution until the 1980s, and tour the pithead buildings with a former miner.

Where to stay: DONINGTON PARK FARMHOUSE CARAVAN PARK

Address Melbourne Road, Isley Walton, Castle Donington, Derby, Derbyshire DE74 2RN
Website Click Here
Open All year

Where to go: SUMMERLEE HERITAGE PARK

Address Heritage Way, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire
Website Click Here
Opening times Daily, 10am-4pm. Closed 25-26 December and 1-2 January
Admission Free
 • Archaeological excavations at the 22-acre site of the former Summerlee Ironworks form the basis of today's award-winning heritage park. The works closed in the 1930s and the buildings were demolished, but the excavated site can now be viewed from a special walkway. Summerlee also has Scotland's only electric tramway and a huge undercover exhibition hall with working machinery. On the domestic front, period room settings recreate how people lived from the 1860s to the 1960s.

Where to stay: WITCHES CRAIG CARAVAN PARK

Address Blairlogie, Stirling FK9 5PX
Website Click Here
Open April-October

Full information about the above parks and attractions can be found in the December 2004 issue of Practical Caravan. For back issues telephone 08456 777812. Admission Price and Opening Times were correct at the time of publishing. Please check for latest information before visiting.